Chapter Text
“Spiced Hive then! It’s great for the soul!” Drifter kicked his heels up onto the central console of the Derelict’s cockpit. Guardians were getting ready for another dive on Titan on the screen in front of him, the feed muted. He heard Eris huff from the other end of the line.
“No.”
“Aw, c’mon Moondust!”
“No. I am not consuming Hive.” She sighed deeply. He smiled at the sound, she was fun to wind up.
“Fine. Pho?” He absentmindedly flicked some switches to let him monitor the guardians dive gear and pressure regulators. Eris hummed.
“That consists of noodles, yes?”
“Yep. Noodle soup, boil up some bones, some onions, ginger, bit of cinnamon, some other spices.”
“The bone part is… mildly perturbing. But acceptable.”
“S’alright. You don’t eat the bones, it’s just a flavour thing.” The guardians on the screen were doing their final checks. “I gotta head soon, want me to meet ya on Luna? Or you gonna find your way to me?”
“You are assisting with the work on Titan for Sloane, yes?” She paused only for a moment, he knew the way she spoke enough to know it wasn’t really a question, “I am not on Luna currently, I am doing other work.”
“Hidden shit?”
“That is highly classified information.”
“So it’s Hidden shit. Where are ya?”
“That is not something you are directly permitted to know.”
“Uh huh…” He waited, a smirk on his face she couldn’t see, but he knew she’d be able to hear. Eris gave another deep sigh, resigned.
“Mars. I shall be predisposed for a few hours yet.”
“Ah, well Derelict ain't too far away then.” A message popped up on his console, the HELM folks were hailing him. Must be time to get the show on the road , “I’ll come meet you, just fire me a message when you're done. I need to make some modifications to the tech being used on Titan anyway, I’ll keep myself busy till you're ready.”
“Understood.”
“Make sure to show up the rest of Ikora’s spies!”
“That is not how this works. I must depart.”
“See ya Moondust!”
The comms line cut without another word.
Dinner to talk about the ‘current threat of the Darkness’, as Eris would put it, had become the norm since she had first stopped him from turning tail and leaving Sol. It was becoming something different lately though, he thought.
He grumbled in the back of his throat, not the time to think about that .
The message to join the comms channel of the deep dive pinged at him once again, insistently. This time he picked up.
Eris hung up with a press to the earpiece hidden beneath her hood. She looked up at the green portal, the grotesque hive magics seeping from it felt like static electricity along her skin. Even after so long using the same form of power, it still made her tense up. Particularly here.
The Throne World, a sealed off plane for a Hive god whose body currently sat in the Vanguard vaults. Who, according to Ahsa’s most recent communications through Sloane, they would all be required to soon work with.
Her handheld comms pinged. She checked the message. It was from him, Drifter - Germaine. She squinted slightly to attempt to make it out better, it was an image of some form. A second message pinged through. She pressed a button to have the message read out to her.
It’s a picture of Hive eyes on a skewer. In case you reconsider that offer of spiced Hive. Hive can be mighty tasty ;)
Eris scoffed - equal parts offended, amused and, oddly, touched. He was for some bizarre reason the most accommodating person with the way she saw things differently. Digital displays were not the easiest to read, which he knew and aided in with image descriptions… And then sent images of eyeballs of the monsters that had destroyed her life for years. Truly he was a law into himself.
She shook her head fondly before tucking away the comms.
It was not exactly an untruth to tell the Drifter she was doing ‘Hidden shit’, although to be more accurate she was rectifying the errors and absence of information her fellow agents had not been able to supply her with.
She had asked for accurate images and descriptions of the Altar of Reflection, curious as to whether it had anything more to give. The information she had received in response was inadequate for her purposes.
If they truly were going to be forced to allow the resurrection of Savathun, to ally with her, she would not allow them to go into this without the full information available. Facing the Hive without the full picture did not historically end well for Guardians. Or for her.
Which was how she found herself deep within the caves and caverns of the Witch Queen’s domain. She checked her hand cannon a final time before stepping through.
Eris had to have a begrudging amount of respect for the Lucent Brood. They put up more of a fight than their Lunar cousins. She shifted her weight and heard a crack as the chitin below her boot shattered and the Knight fell limp beneath her. She fired a shot into the topmost of its eyes for good measure.
She cast a glance around the room with glowing eyes. A few thralls and a knight were all the resistance she faced in the first chamber after the rune puzzle, one of the many Savathun was fond of. She wrinkled her nose, disgust for the Witch Queen and her schemes soured her thoughts.
A lucent moth fluttered before her limited sight, its light glowing brightly in her vision. It was decimated with a single well aimed bullet from Loud Lullaby.
She righted herself, tugging at her breastplate and shrugging slightly to resituate her pauldrons, adjusted her grip on Loud Lullaby in her left hand, her orb in her right, before moving forwards.
Standing on one of the high platforms, she looked out at the void that fell off before her. It lookede like an infinite fall, an empty space with mist. Her vision couldn’t make out the mist, simply the absence of light. It was interesting how different the architecture here was to most Hive creations. Was it related solely to Savathun? Did she believe herself superior to her kin? That certainly seemed to be the intention of the grand pillars and spires of the Throne World, it spoke of something more… sophisticated than the sharp and rough designs below the surface of Luna.
She scanned for threats before leaving her orb to hover in the air and took the data pad out of a bag at her waist to take notes.
An intentional separation by Savathun of herself and the path of ‘Light’ compared to her siblings Bladed Path?
She frowned down at her notes.
It was a bright flash of light, a split second warning from her senses. A whisper from the bone that hovered enveloped in soulfire.
Down.
Eris ducked, tucking and rolling forwards. She was quick to right herself, data pad abandoned for her weapons. It took only a second for her to be back into the battle mindset. Always a Hunter at heart.
She reached out with Hive magics, clarifying the world around her.
A Hive Lightbearer. A Lightbearer Acolyte to specific. A Hunter - by the Lucent Hive’s standards. How ironic.
This was not the intended turn of events.
It’s eyes glowed, sinister, unnerving. Eris watched it raise the crossbow like weapon, a Splinter, before pulling the trigger. She was faster. Eris tucked herself back behind a pillar, flat against the odd stone. She heard the impact and moved, taking her chance. Grasping her orb, she spun on her heel, out of her cover, tossing stasis energy in the acolyte’s direction.
I am equipped for thralls. For acolytes and knights and wizards.
A Splinter projectile whistled past her. She felt it catch the edge of her cloak as she dove left, back to cover. She didn’t have a chance to see if her stasis grenade landed true.
I can handle Ogres and blind a Luminous Eye.
Eris peeked out from behind her cover and loosed a whole clip into the Acolyte. Every shot hit true, chitin cracking and fracturing. The sound of the breaking shell was satisfying enough to make her smile. She ducked back to reload.
I have not killed one of you before.
Stasis crackled at her finger tips.
But you will be my first.
It almost felt like being in the Crucible again, as she flung a knife from her hip, coated in stasis. It embedded with a moist sound in one of the Hive’s eyes.
The sound of its scream was piercing, horrifying. Eris cringed, fought back the ice in her veins at the memories it dredged up.
This is not the time for weakness.
She dove out, ready to finish it. Her orb froze over, hovering, the white knuckle grip she had held it in abandoned for stasis forming into the curved blade of a kami. Eris tossed the blade, the spin and weight carefully calculated, she had the high ground and it should - it would - land true.
In the same second the weapon left her hand, orange light flared around the Hive. Heat, fire, Solar.
The Hive glowed, bright enough even for her stolen eyesight to see. She watched as huge knives of solar light formed around it, hovering like a halo of fire, spinning.
The kami landed at the Acolyte’s feet, a flurry of razor sharp stasis shards kicking up in a blizzard.
The solar blades shot forwards, quick, propelled by light.
Eris moved with a spring, spinning as she dodged. The first two blades missed, impacting with a burst of burning heat against the wall behind her. The third grazed her leg, the fabric burning with an acrid smell but there was no pain. The fourth hit the ground at her feet. She lost her balance as it shook, as the platform cracked.
Shit!
Pain bloomed as the sixth hit her. She felt it cut deep, just along her ribs on her right side. Eris grit her teeth, unwilling to make a sound, to let the creature know the pain it had caused, to give it the satisfaction. She buckled, doubling over. She raised her gun, ready to get off another hit. She got another four bullets into the Acolyte before two flaming blades came.
She felt the heat scorch her gun arm. The weapon took the brunt of the impact. And then the last hit the underside of the elevated platform.
She didn’t have time to register what was happening as the floor beneath her feet shattered.
The fall hurt.
Her left arm crunched, her full weight crumpling the arm below her as she tried to break her fall. Her gun flew out of her grip. She heard it clatter to the ground to her right. And then her head hit the ground - her skull bouncing roughly against hard flooring.
Her vision blurred, darkened, a sharp pain behind her eyes before she blinked hard, pulling the world back into focus.
The Acolyte was still standing - knife sticking out of one eye, shards of stasis poking out of the flesh between hard plates of cracked chitin. It took a step forwards.
Eris reacted as best she could, agony shooting through every nerve as she raised the arm she hadn’t crushed beneath her. A shard of pure stasis flew from her fingers, encasing her attacker - exhaustion began to pull at her muscles, at bones she knew she had broken.
The crystals cracked, then shattered. The Acolyte fell, collapsing.
There was a long moment of quiet before the blip of light. The Ghost. It hovered over it’s ‘Chosen ’.
Kill the Ghost, the Ahamkara bone whispered. It was right. The sight of it though - the thoughts of Brya, of all the friends and their lost Ghosts, the lightless shells the Guardians brought her on the moon.
She didn’t have long.
She steeled her nerves. She drew another knife from her hip, coated it in darkness, and threw.
The Ghost’s green eye was impaled, and its chitinous shell fell apart.
Her chest heaved. Blood pooled beneath her. Her head throbbed, vision blurring periodically. Thoughts scattered.
Call someone.
She caught sight of her comms - scuffed, scratched and cracked from the 10ft fall - and most importantly too far away to reach.
With painstaking movements, she pulled her arm up to press the button on her earpiece - redial.